Technical Architect (Adobe AEM aka CQ5 CMS)
Location: GB, CMD, London
Department: Technology
Salary range: 60-75
Employment type: Full-time
Required experience: Mid-Senior level
Required education: Bachelor's Degree
Industry: Marketing and Advertising
Function: Engineering

Company profile:
The Technical Team and offering at VML London has a very strong heritage dating back to the mid-nineties when the London office was founded. Back in those days we were one of the first few purely digital marketing agencies in London; and back then things were a lot more technically driven than they often are today; as such the Technology team here continues to enjoy a strong strategic influence on the work that the agency undertakes and the clients that we engage.It just works.Technology is brilliant when you don’t have to think about it. That’s what we strive for in our solutions. Our technology team has a strong strategic influence on the work we undertake and are involved as soon as the brief lands. They stay involved throughout strategy, creative concepting and design. Acting as important enablers, we bring new and emerging technology to the table to successfully marry the requirements of our clients with the vision of our creatives.Open standards, open minds.We aim to deliver the most elegant technical solution for your budget, and maintain a technology agnostic approach to development in order to achieve that. Technology can be expensive, both in terms of hard costs and costly mistakes, so we’re as careful with your money as we are with our own.   Perhaps that’s why some of our clients have been with us for over 10 years. When faced with a new problem our first instinct is always to see if someone else has already solved it. As such, the solutions we design are built on the rich eco-system of open source software (OSS); the proven and battle-tested kind that we know will not just do the job quickly and cost-effectively, but also robustly. Where OSS isn't appropriate we always favour solutions that are built to open standards that we know will integrate well with other technologies.Strong partnerships.Our work is complemented by strong partnerships with technology vendors and suppliers.   Proven over time, our established strategic relationships with many of the leaders in software, hardware and other technology solutions help ensure we’re able to continue to offer best-in-class technical solutions for our clients.What we do:High availability and high performance website architecture &amp; developmentWeb content management solutionsCreative technology ideationContent optimisation, search and analyticsHigh volume, multi-locale email campaignsMobile optimisationLocalisation

Job description:
The increasingly complex web applications, mobile sites and applications, and digital experiences we build require novel user interfaces that work more like applications than websites, and are built upon the market leading Adobe Experience Manager platform (formerly known as CQ5). The Technical Architect for AEM CMS leads members of the VML Technical team in the creation, specification, costing, production and post-production of CMS driven web development projects. The Technical Architect in particular bridges both the client side and server side of our applications, helping to make a reality VML’s goal to apply the same quality processes used to build enterprise server applications to build enterprise JavaScript applications on the client side. The complexity of VML’s AEM site builds varies from simple editorially driven websites using out of the box AEM features, to transactional websites integrated with backend services using client side or edge side page assembly, to data driven websites integrating with data services using OSGi bundles. Some VML AEM sites use extensions for mobile device support or social communities, and increasingly VML is required to integrate AEM sites with wider features of the Adobe Marketing Cloud product suite. The software we build runs business critical systems with high performance, high availability requirements for some of the UK’s leading brands, taking millions of pounds per day in sales and being design to cope with tens of thousands of page impressions per second. As such, VML is looking for an engineer and architect who favours disciplined development and testing practices to the more trial and error approach that is often applied to campaign related digital marketing work, and applies techniques such as continuous integration, continuous testing and static code analysis to maintain quality. The successful applicant will have a minimum of 7 years of experience with a range of enterprise Java technologies and content management systems, with at least two years experience with AEM/CQ5 and ideally familiarity with client side technologies as well, especially MVC pattern JavaScript applications. They will be confident at leading groups of developers to a successful project conclusion.

Requirements:
Required Knowledge and skills:Design and management of production of JSP templatesConfiguration and fine performance tuning of AEM configurationIntegration of external search and tuning of the lucene search indexingCRX / JCR performance tuningSoftware design and architecture using recognized patterns and object oriented designDevelopment of AJAX heavy ‘single page’ websites on the AEM platformPre-deployment configuration and security checklists for AEMLinux and Windows operating systems system administrationCode control using Git or SubversionOSGiFamiliarity with Apache technologies including Felix, Sling and Lucene, and the Tomcat and Apache Web Server productsUnit Testing and Test Driven Development of AEM sitesTesting and defect management using Jira or similarExcellent customer facing communications, presentation and documentation skills Useful extra knowledge and skills:Similar Java CMS such as Magnolia, Hippo, Liferay, Alfresco, Vignette.Net CMS especially SiteCorenginx web server configurationAdobe Social Communities pluginHybrid application development using PhonegapBest practices for Integration Management, Release Management, Configuration Management, Estimation and other software engineering processesAgile software development using Scrum and similar, and tools such as Jira AgileLine management and coaching of junior members of staff Key responsibilities:Take on overall responsibility for technical delivery of the AEM applicationsDefine system architectures and technical solutions cognizant of performance, security, authoring, administration, usability, searchability, maintainability, testability and efficiency of solutionReviewing code contributed by other team members and maintaining a high standard for code allowed to be committed to the product code branchMeet third parties to negotiate, define and document any interfaces, protocols, processes and procedures needed for the projectTake part in creative discussions and steer those discussions in the most technically appropriate direction, recommending best technical approachWork with the project team to define and document project scope, specifications and plans requiredWork to plan the technical delivery, and help Project Managers track progress against thisProvide accurate cost, assumption and risk information in a timely manner based on varying qualities of brief.  On an ongoing basis, communicate effectively with Project Managers, providing up to date information on project status and risks as the project progresses.Assist with the recruitment of the team onto the project.  Brief team members and manage them in the production of work to the brief.Ensure that knowledge gained is always shared outwards to the teams and the company as a whole.Ensure that the project is delivered to high standards of quality in all aspects including, but not limited to code, documentation, configuration management, source code control and best practiceContribute directly towards the project deliverables, including coding and documentationOwn the VML coding standard for AEM JSP components and standard architecture for integration and preproduction checklists and help to coach staff in applying itTroubleshooting and Problem Resolution Challenges of the role:The Technical Architect is regularly found in both internal and client facing meetings where they will be called upon to provide technical guidance and expertise. The Technical Architect is one of the representatives of the technical offering of the agency and as such they need to be strong &amp; articulate communicators, charismatic and convincing thought leaders. Key relationships:Technical DirectorThe Technical Architect needs to communicate regularly with the Technical Director to report project progress, discuss changes and improvements to working practices and strategy for the technical team’s development.Project ManagerThe Project Manager is responsible for the success of a project, and as such requires regular updates from development teams working on their projects. The Technical Architect inputs heavily into the project planning process to detail the technical delivery work undertaken.

Benefits: